University Press Releases

Santa Clara University is a top producer of U.S. Fulbright students

Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

Santa Clara, Calif., Nov. 19, 2009 - The Fulbright Program recently announced the complete list of colleges and universities that produced the most 2009-10 U.S. Fulbright Fellows. The success of the top producing institutions was highlighted in the October 19 print edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Santa Clara University was one of 29 master’s institutions to be called out in this list. Two students from SCU won Fulbright awards for 2009-10.

Beth Tellman’09 was recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Student Award. Tellman, who double majored in sustainable globalization and environmental studies, is researching food security for coffee farmers in El Salvador.

Benjamin Snyder ’09, who majored in political science, German, and history, was awarded a Fulbright Teacher Assistantship Award that took him to Saxony, in the former East Germany, where he is teaching English to secondary school students.

The Fulbright competition is administered at Santa Clara University through the University Honors Program.

Under the Fulbright program, 1,559 American students in more than 100 different fields of study have been offered grants to study, teach English, and conduct research in more than 125 countries throughout the world beginning this fall.

Of the 1,557 Fulbrighters, 19 percent are at the Ph.D. degree level, 17 percent are at the master’s level, and 65 percent are at the bachelor’s degree level. Student receiving awards for this academic year applied through 570 college or universities. Lists of Fulbright recipients are available at: www.fulbrightonline.org/us.

Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 294,000 participants worldwide with the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic and cultural institutions, exchange ideas and embark on joint ventures of importance to the general welfare of the world’s inhabitants. In the past 63 years, more than 42,000 students from the United States have benefited from the Fulbright experience.

The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Financial support is provided by an annual appropriation from Congress to the Department of State, with significant contributions from participating governments and host institutions in the United States and abroad. The Presidentially appointed J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board formulates policy guidelines and makes the final selection of all grantees.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its 8,758 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus masters and law degrees, and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. masters universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.